Why is there a preference for a son over a daughter in India? What are the best responses to someone feeling sympathy for the birth of your daughter?

为什么印度人重男轻女？当某人对你生了女儿表示同情时，最好的回应是什么？

以下是Quora读者的评论：

Balaji Viswanathan, Indian by Birth. Indian by Thought.

In India, almost all classes seem to prefer male child over female child. I find this crazy [my wife and I want a girl child]. This tragic choice is due to the following factors:

在印度，几乎所有的阶层都更喜欢男孩。我觉得这太疯狂了(我和我妻子想要一个女孩)。这一悲剧性的选择是由于下列因素:

1.Once they get married the female goes to an another family. Thus, the parents of females get 0, while the parents of males get 2. Indians are stuck between an ancient tribal system where everyone lived together and the modern system where families are nuclear. Both these are better for women than India's system of the bride moving to the in-laws house.

2.Females are not often groomed to take over the family business as they are expected to be distracted with raising children. Since the females are not helped to become business leaders [unlike sons who receive unfair advantage], businessmen often prefer sons. It is sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

3.Families with ancestral property think the female children as leading to division of property, while the males stay in the property and thus kee the ancestral treasures within the family. In fact, dowry probably evolved to compensate the female for giving up her share of the family property to her brothers.

1.一旦结婚，女性就变成另一个家庭的人了。因此，女方父母得到0，而男方父母得到2。印度人夹在古老的部落制度（群居）和现代制度（小家庭）之间。这两种方式都比印度的新娘搬到夫家更好。

2.女性通常不会被培养来接管家族事业，因为她们会因需要抚养孩子而分散精力。由于没有人帮助女性成为商业领袖(不像那些得到不公平优势的儿子)，商人往往更喜欢儿子。

3.拥有祖产的家庭认为，女儿会导致财产的分割，而男性则因无需出嫁而能将祖产留在家中。事实上，嫁妆很可能就是为了补偿女性放弃继承传给兄弟们的家庭财产。

India is a curious case of a healthy economy where women's participation is reducing rather than increasing. As India economy grows, female participation in work force declines: ILO - While it is easier to blame poverty, caste blah blah blah, those factors are not increasing, but decreasing, while women's participation is also decreasing. We should look for deeper causes.

One way to break this cycle is to move to a sort of tribal like community, where the whole family - both of the bride and groom - live close in an apartment community. This way the female is not leaving home, nor breaking the property. And the young mothers would have enough people to care of her children, while she moves up in career or business or education.

印度是一个健康经济的奇怪例子，妇女的参与度正在减少而不是增加。随着印度经济的增长，女性的劳动参与率下降：国际劳工组织(ILO)—虽然将原因归咎于贫困、种姓等等更容易一些，但这些因素不是在增加，而是在减少，而女性的参与度也在下降。我们应该寻找更深层次的原因。

打破这种循环的一个方法是搬到一个类似部落的社区，在那里整个家族—包括新娘和新郎—都住在一个公寓社区里。这样女性就不用离开娘家，也不会分割财产。年轻的母亲们会有足够的人帮忙照顾她的孩子，而她会在事业、商业或教育方面有所提升。

Aakriti Gupta, lives in India

Mix Indian culture with economics, and you have the following:

Boys are an investment while girls are a liability.

1.It is expected of boys to live with his parents and care for them when they get old. It is expected of girls to do the same for her husband’s parents & not her own.

2.Marrying off a girl child is expensive affair, as a parent you are on the giving end. Marrying a boy child traditionally involves you to be on the receiving end of both goods and services.

3.The giving and taking equation doesn’t end on the wedding day. Girl’s families are traditionally expected to give gifts/money on every occasion and festival post their daughter’s wedding.

4.Investing in a boy’s education makes sense since you can reap the benefits later on. Investing in a girl’s education has nothing in it for you. Taking monetary help from daughters is looked down upon.

The economics here is pretty straight forward. It’s the culture that’s to be blamed IMHO. The system as it stands today rewards the birth of a son, while penalizing the birth of a daughter. Solutions have to be more egalitarian like Wedding expense should be shared strictly in half by both parties & the couple should move out of both their respective homes and start afresh where both set of parents have an option to come and stay with their kids & be a part of their lives etc.

把印度文化和经济融合在一起，你会得到以下结果:

男孩是投资，女孩是负担。

1.人们期望男孩与父母同住，并在他们年老时照顾他们。人们期望女孩为她丈夫的父母做同样的事情，而不是她自己的父母。

2.把女孩嫁出去是一件昂贵的事情，作为父母，你要付出很多。传统上，男孩结婚意味着你既是商品的接受者，也是服务的接受者。

3.给予和索取的平衡不会在婚礼那天结束。女孩的家庭传统上被期望在女孩出嫁后的每个场合和节日都送来礼物/礼金。

4.投资男孩的教育是有意义的，因为你可以在以后获得好处。投资女孩的教育对你来说毫无意义。从女儿那里得到金钱上的帮助是被人瞧不起的。

这里面的经济学是相当直接的。依我之愚见，这是一种应该受到谴责的文化。今天的制度是生男孩奖励，生女孩惩罚。解决方案必须更加平等，比如婚礼费用应由双方严格分摊，这对夫妇应该搬出各自的家庭，开始新生活，两边的父母可以选择过来陪伴他们的孩子&成为他们生活的一部分等。

Charanjeet Singh, Seeking Wisdom

This is true that india society prefer a son over a daughter. There are two main reason for this one is "Khaandaan ka chirag". People believes that their clan will only continue if & if only they have a son. Having no son means end of clan. Second reason , people expected that in old age their son will take care of them. And then more & more reasons get added to the list like dowry etc.

Now one interesting thing to share, I am born to a family where there is no such  preference exst. Also in our clan the first child born is always a Girl & their birth is ' always celebrated as we celebrate birth of a son. My parents's first baby was my sister.

My father has two brothers say Uncle1 & Uncle2. Uncle1 have their first baby was a son but then God simultaneously showered his blessing in the form of daughter. Uncle1 had twins one son & one daughter.

The came the turn of Uncle2. His first baby was also a daughter. We had celebrated it to the fullest.

Then my sister got married and her first & only baby was a daughter. My lovely Hasrhu when she says" Maama g aap muje sabse ache lagte ho" it is one of the proud moment of my life.

Then came my turn I also got married & Will you believe peoples my first & only baby was a daughter. So happy & thankful to God I was, when he gave his blessings to me in the form of my daughter.

印度社会确实重男轻女。人们相信只要他们有个儿子，家族就能得以延续。没有儿子意味着家族的终结。第二个原因，人们期望儿子会照顾他们。然后重男轻女的理由越来越多，如嫁妆等。

有趣的是，我出生在一个没有这种偏好的家庭。在我们的家族里，第一个出生的孩子总是女孩，她们的出生总能得到庆祝儿子出生一样的对待。我父母的第一个孩子是我姐姐。

我父亲有两个兄弟，叔叔1和叔叔2。叔叔1的第一个孩子是个儿子，但神同时也以女儿的形式向他们赐予了祝福。叔叔1生了一对龙凤胎，一个儿子一个女儿。

轮到叔叔2了。他的第一个孩子也是个女儿。我们尽情地庆祝她的出生。

后来我姐姐结婚了，她的第一个也是唯一的孩子是个女儿。当我可爱的Hasrhu说“Maama g aap muje sabse ache lagte ho”时，那是我一生中最骄傲的时刻之一。

现在轮到我，我也结婚了，你相信吗？我的第一个也是唯一的孩子是个女儿。当神赐予我女儿作为祝福时，我是多么快乐，多么感谢神。

Vijay Kumar

The notion is true in most parts of India. These could be possible reasons which I have found from my personal experience dealing with people who wanted a boy over a girl.

1.One of my previous maid servants had a son. She and her 2 daughters protected him like crazy and always cared for him. The extra care that they gave him was extremely prominent. On one occasion my mom actually asked one of the girls and she said that it was because he would be earning in the future. He was the only one sent to school among the 3 kids. Unfortunately the kid died and by what our maid was saying while crying, it was pretty imminent that she would have cried less if it was one of her daughters. Never did it strike them that one of the daughters might have studied hard and earned as much. Sad, hard truth.

2.Another 2 daughter 1 son combination, but this time they were extremely rich jewelers. They protected and spoiled their only son, probably over the fact that he was to take over the family business. One need not have an expert eye to notice the partiality in the parents' treatment of the kids based on their gender. Never did it strike them that their eldest daughter who is one of the smartest and strongest girls that I have seen could easily head the business and do a much better job than their brat son. Sad, unfortunate truth.

这种观念在印度大部分地区都是真的。以下可能是根据我个人经历发现的某些人重男轻女的原因。

1.我以前的一个女佣有个儿子。她和两个女儿疯狂地保护他，关心他。她们给了他额外照顾。有一次，我妈妈问其中一个女孩原因，她说因为他将来会赚钱。他是三个孩子中唯一能上学的。不幸的是，孩子死了，按照女佣的哭诉，如果死的是女儿，她也不会哭得那么惨。她们从来没有想过，女儿中也许会有一个学习用功，一样挣大钱。难过但残酷的事实。

2.另一个2女儿1儿子的组合，但他们是非常富有的珠宝商。他们宠坏了唯一的儿子，也许是因为他将来要接管家族事业。人们很明显地就能注意到父母因为性别对待孩子的不公平。他们没有想过，大女儿是我见过最聪明、最坚强的女孩之一，能够轻而易举地领导企业，比他们的儿子做得更好。难过但残酷的事实。

Shreenivas, Follower of Sanatana Dharma, studying advaita vedanta.

India is a deep rooted male dominant society. Apart from few examples here and there , very few women stood equal to men. We don't need to do anything as of now, things are happening on it's own, infact happening too fast and too much. Below few things which will be in her favor when she grows up-

印度是一个根深蒂固的男权社会。除了少数个例外，很少有妇女能与男子平等。我们现在不需要做任何事，事情都是自然而然发生的，事实上发生得太快太多了。下面是她长大后对她有利的几件事：

1.She gets man who earns salary more than her. Other way around is very rare. So, financially she will be quite stable. Even if both earn equally, it unwritten rule that men mostly pay all the bills, her salary is just kept in bank account to be used only when required.

2.Though men want his wife to be working in metro cities like Mumbai, Bangalore to unburden huge loans, but she has a soft corner and can quit job at her will. Many occasions, she quits job permanently once baby is born.

3.For a married working women, if office stress is unbearable , she has comfort of quitting job at any moment as husband no matter what has to earn money and support the family. No matter what stress he goes through, he will still be alive and working.

4.Nowadays, there is a rule in metros if woman is working. 'if-i-go-to-work-you-also-do-dishwash-' . That rule continue even after women quits her job.

5.She can wear pink, yellow , voilet, green, indigo or any possible available colored clothes, men’s clothing revolves around black, blue and white.

6.If a girl is mediocre in studies, parent are not much bothered especially if girl is fair and good looking. She can get away with fancy courses like interior decoration, hotel management etc but still can get a guy from IIM ,IIT . In reverse case, parents are too much worried,boy has to sweat his blood to finish his engineering or society will finish him.

1.她找到一个比她挣得多的男人。所以，经济上她会很稳定。即使两人挣得一样多，不成文的规定是男人理应支付所有的账单，她的工资存在银行账户里，需要的时候才会动用。

2.虽然男人们希望他的妻子在孟买、班加罗尔等大城市工作，以减轻巨额贷款的负担，但她可以随心所欲地辞职。多数情况下，孩子一出生她就永久性地辞职了。

3.对于一个已婚的职业女性来说，如果办公室的压力让她无法承受，她可以随时辞去工作，无论丈夫是为了赚钱还是养家糊口。不管他承受多大的压力，他一样得好好活着，好好工作。

4.现在，大城市里有一条规定，如果女人工作的话。“如果你是职业女性，下班后你还得洗碗”。即使在女性离职后，这一规则依然适用。

5.她可以穿粉色、黄色、紫色、绿色、靛蓝色或任何颜色的衣服，男装则以黑色、蓝色和白色为主。

6.如果一个女孩在学习上表现平平，父母不会太在意，尤其是如果女孩长得又漂白皙又漂亮。她可以随便选择室内装饰、酒店管理之类的课程，但仍然可以找到IIM、IIT毕业的男朋友。反过来说，父母会非常担心，儿子必须拼着劲完成工程师课程，否则社会容不下他。

Anonymous

I don’t know if you live in India or not but now in the 21st century India has changed a lot both in a good and a bad way.

There is a history of India oppressing the woman. Woman in India was not allowed to express herself.Moreover situation became terrible when she would marry. Cause then she would be beaten for any mishappening in the family even though she was not responsible for it.Domestic violence against women was a very common thing.This was a terrible situation for woman in India.

But all of this stopped when people started demanding for women rights.India changed for the good and now a women gets equal rights as men.And it must happen. I think every woman and man have equal rights. No body should consider themselves inferior or superior.

But the way all women rights campaign happened created a terrible situation for men. People who campaigned for women right were not only demanding equal rights for women but demanded for a women dominated society with lesser rights for men.

They started saying that all men are bad, all sons are bad, all husbands are bad and even all fathers are bad.Therefore they must have lesser rights.

我不知道你是否生活在印度，但是在21世纪，印度发生了很多变化，有好的方面，也有不好的方面。

印度有压迫妇女的历史。印度妇女不允许表达自己的意见。此外，当她要结婚时，情况会变得很糟糕。针对妇女的家庭暴力是很常见的。这对印度妇女而言很可怕。

但当人们开始要求妇女权利时，这一切都停止了。印度向好的方向发展，现在女性享有与男性平等的权利。我认为每个女人和男人都享有平等的权利。任何人都不应该认为自己低人一等。

但是，女权运动给男性造成了可怕的局面。为妇女争取权利的人不仅要求妇女享有平等的权利，而且要求建立一个妇女占主导地位、男子享有较少权利的社会。

他们开始说所有的男人都是坏胚子，所有儿子都坏，所有丈夫都坏，甚至所有的父亲都坏。因此，他们必须享有较少的权利。

译文来源：三泰虎 http://www.santaihu.com/48608.html 译者：Joyceliu

Anti dowry law is being misused to harass and extort husbands,leading to the high suicide rate among married men in India, almost twice that of women.Domestic violence against men have increased a lot. All people even religious heads started a kind of campaign that if they said anything against the men community they would be considered advocating for women’s rights.

Even after doing a lot for their parents (unlike the western countries where men tend to live away from their parents) they are ridiculed for not doing enough.

So its a terrible situation for men in India It's like society is taking a revenge for the past misdeeds done by the then men.

反嫁妆法被有心之人滥用来骚扰和勒索丈夫们，导致印度已婚男性的自杀率几乎高达女性的两倍。针对男性的家庭暴力增加了很多。所有人，甚至是宗教领袖都发起一场运动，如果他们对男性群体说了什么，就会被认为是在倡导女性的权利。

所以，对印度男人来说，这是一个可怕的情况，就像社会在报复过去男人所做的坏事。

Drishti Singh, studies MBBS at Jawaharlal Nehru Medical College, Wardha (2024)

So this is a real incident that happened a few years ago.

One of the couples in my neighbourhood was blessed with a girl child. She happened to be thier second daughter and their first daughter was already 6 years old.

The couple were really happy and enthusiastically preparing for a party to welcome their new born princess.

Among the many people who called up to congratulate them was a doctor.The things that he said were completely unwelcoming and shocking coming from such an educated person.

This is what he said”I was calling you to congratulateyou for the newly born child but now that i know that it is a girl child i rather sympathise with you for the loss.God knows how will you live with the burden of having two daughters”!!!

Shocking? Right?

But the proud father who never considered it a burden shut his mouth well by saying that “I was about to invite you to our party welcoming our new child but i only want to see smiling faces there and not sympathising ones,so im sorry you won’t be able to make it to our guest list.Good bye”.

Tit for tat. I think this could be the best response someone could give these people who are instrumental in circulating such cheap thoughts around.

I being a girl have faced many situation where we are made to feel inferior than the boys and i personally feel that until and unless each one of us gain wisdom we would never be able to talk about equality.

这是几年前发生的真实事件。

我家附近的一对夫妇很幸运地生了一个女孩。她是他们的二女儿，他们的大女儿已经6岁了。

这对夫妇真的很高兴，并热情地准备了一个派对，欢迎他们新出生的公主。

许多人打电话祝贺他们，其中有一位医生。可他说的话实在让人无法接受，令人震惊，这样一个受过教育的人居然会说出这样的话。

他是这样说的：“我打电话祝贺你喜得贵子，但现在我知道你生了个女孩，我对你深表同情。天知道你要如何承受两个女儿的重担！”

令人震惊吧？对吧？

但骄傲的父亲从不认为这是一种负担，他说“我正要邀请你参加我们的聚会，迎接我们的新生儿，但我只想看到开心的笑脸，我不需要同情，所以我很抱歉你不在我们的客人名单里了。再见。”

以牙还牙。我认为这可能是最好的回应了。

作为一个女孩，我遇到过很多情况，人们让我们比男孩更自卑，我个人认为，除非我们每个人都获得智慧，否则我们永远无法谈论平等。

Nikita Kataria, Software Associate at JPMorgan Chase (2017-present)

Unfortunately even at this age, India treats a baby boy with much higher preference than a baby girl.

1.Baby Girl will grow up to marry another boy. Baby boy will take care of us in our old age and Baby boy can take the family name forward.

2.Baby Boy will marry and will bring a beautiful bride with a good amount of dowry and the family will live happily ever after. If you are from the family of baby girl, you will have to spend in giving the dowry instead of at receiving end.

不幸的是，即使在这个年代，印度依然更喜欢男婴。

1.女婴长大后会嫁给另一个男孩。在我们年老的时候，男孩会照顾我们，可以继承家族的姓氏。

2.男孩结婚能娶进一个漂亮的新娘，获得大量的嫁妆，跟男方的家人幸福地生活在一起。如果你生了女儿，你必须花钱准备嫁妆。